First Solar Signs on PG&E for 300MW of Desert Sunlight Project

First Solar, the thin film solar darling, has lined up another customer for the power generated at its planned Desert Sunlight project in Riverside County, Calif: Pacific Gas & Electric. Under a power purchasing agreement announced this morning, the California utility plans buy more than half of the electricity from the 550-megawatt project, set to enter construction by the end of this year. Pending approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E has contracted First Solar for a 300-megawatt portion of the facility.

Back in August, utility Southern California Edison (SCE) announced that it had inked a contract with First Solar for 250 megawatts from the Desert Sunlight project, as well as 300 megawatts from the so-called Stateline project in northeastern San Bernadino County. First Solar spokesperson Alan Bernheimer told us this morning that the SCE agreement remains unchanged. “We’ll build the whole project together,” said Bernheimer, with one substation and one interconnection for electricity feeding to the two utilities. “As we complete 10-megawatt blocks, they’ll go online, assuming transmission infrastructure is in place,” he explained, with each utility getting “10 megawatts here, 10 megawatts there.”

PG&E has recently been rounding up a herd of solar power suppliers as part of an effort to achieve the state-mandated goal of generating 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. That effort has seen a few setbacks, however, as some of the startups contracted by PG&E have struggled in the economic downturn — laying off staff and turning their focus to different markets. Last year, two startups that had deals with PG&E (Optisolar and Ausra) ended up selling off planned projects to First Solar. Ausra was sold to French nuclear giant Areva last month.